felt, buttons, string, thread
18 x 8 x 2 inches
Becoming a mother has been a heartfelt awakening that has bound me bodily and emotionally with other mothers. The birth of my second child, Evan, gave me a keen understanding that birth and death are similar journeys that can happen simultaneously. The act of mothering has transfigured me as a woman and as an artist. My work attempts to capture fleeting moments of clarity during the profoundly enriching work of motherhood. I often use dangling elements, such as umbilical cords or strings, to capture the tenuousness upon which much of our lives seem to hang.
This is a piece I hand-felted very thickly to represent a uterus wall. I then used buttons from my much-loved grandmother and hand-sewed one for each day of our child Evan's life in-utero. The last two buttons are butterflies. When a baby dies, hospital staff members place a pink butterfly on the door to signify a loss.
